


Incarnadine

by Oparu



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Contains past Philippa Georgiou/Paris, Descriptions of wounds and injuries, F/F, Gen, Maternal Georgiou & Burnham, Whump, all about relationships, of mirrored and regular varieties
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-03-22 07:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13758981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: Michael Burnham and Sylvia Tilly are attacked in a museum and former Emperor Phiippa Georgiou comes to their aid. When she’s hurt in the process, Michael and Tilly have to keep her alive long enough to get to Starbase Nineteen, which is under Captain Afsaneh Paris’ command.Michael confronts her own demons, Afsaneh meets a ghost with a beloved face, Philippa is a terrible patient, Tilly is very clever (and awkward), and Admiral Cornwall reflects on some of the choices she’s made, including letting the former emperor of a dark universe free in her own.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Injuries and blood feature prominently in this chapter. 
> 
> Many thanks to reflectingiridescent and holdouttrout for holding my hand while I wrote this.
> 
> This is a mother-daughter interpretation of Michael and Mirror Philippa.

Tilly ducks down, one of those vivid yellow disruptor blasts slicing through the air just over her head. “Why is this happening?”

“Cultural misunderstanding?” Michael checks her cover, grabbing her phaser. “Some kind of robbery?”

“We’re in a museum.”

“Those get robbed.” 

“Who would steal artifacts? They belong to everyone!”

Disruptor blasts strike the stone behind them, which rains down sand on their heads. 

“Apparently that is not what they believe in.”

Michael looks to Tilly, holding her phaser, indicating with her eyes. “Four firing positions, multiple attackers. You cover me, I’ll aim right.”

“Right, I mean, I’ll cover, I’ll cover.”

Michael trusts her to have her back, even as Tilly apologizes for not getting the firing lingo right. She’ll get there. Being shot at is never a good time to think. 

She lets out her breath, steadies herself. Finds that place of stillness. Weirdly the sand in her hair makes it easier to concentrate. It’s just like home. Stand up quickly, take the shot, duck back down, let Tilly take out anyone who reacts to her, repeat, follow the blasts. Shoot high, make them duck. Shoot just to the left, let them think she missed.She picks them off, one position, then another. They might get out of this.

Then a disruptor blast slams into the stone by her feet and Michael grabs Tilly, tugging her out of the way. Someone’s in the ceiling, their cover is shot. The giant vase they’re behind now will only take one hit to shatter.

She got cocky.

They’re about to die.

She clears her mind, takes her phaser, if she stands, takes the hits, Tilly might be able to get back to the shuttle.

“When I say run, you run to the shuttle and you don’t look back.”

Tilly’s eyes are wide and white. She gets it. “No, Michael, no, we—“

Disruptors sing agony around her, hot and white-yellow. There’s another sound, something deeper, less of a whine. Not Starfleet, but not their attackers. Whoever they are, they are a very good shot. One firing position, then another goes down. Quiet. Smoke wreaths them and Michael taps Tilly, encouraging her to crawl to the left, get behind one of the more substantial sarcophagi. 

“Who’s out there?”

“I have no idea, but they’re good.” Really good. Good enough that— No, it wouldn’t be her. She’s on the other side of the galaxy, hooking up with Andorians or trading for Romulan ale or standing over the body of the gleaming white scaled alien who had just been shooting at them.

“You should be careful, Number One. Lenarians value cultural objects for as much as they can sell them for.”

“Philippa,” Michael murmurs.

“The Emperor?” Tilly says, narrowly avoiding a squeak. “Here?”

“I was in the neighborhood.” Philippa stalks down the stairs, twin Nausicaan blasters in hand. “Looks like I should have warned you to stay out of trouble, not the other way around.”

“Thank you.” Michael drops her phaser. 

Tilly looks like she’s almost ready to salute again but she smiles instead. “Thanks, really, I didn’t want to find out what it feels like to get shot.”

“It hurts,” Philippa says, tilting her head in amusement. “Sometimes a great deal.”

“Yeah, going to try and skip that.” 

“You should,” Michael adds, not taking her eyes away from the emperor, who looks like her captain, who once was her mother. Of course this is complicated. “Should I ask what you’re doing here or do I really not want to know?”

“Just trading. It seems my skills from home are rather useful here, in the dark corners of your ever so bright universe.” Philippa squints a little even now that the shooting has stopped. All the lights here must be too bright, and a firefight must give her a hell of a headache. Not that she’ll say anything. “I can find things no one else can.”

Michael leaves it at that, though Tilly wants to ask (but doesn’t, thankfully).

“Don’t suppose you’ve seen any artifacts with this spatial resonance?” Tilly holds up her tricorder. “We think they might be Gritriskuu and we’re collecting them for the Vulcans.”

“Running errands now?”

“Exploring, being diplomatic, all the good Starfleet things.”

Philippa smiles at that, her eyes dark like a predator. “Now that your war is over.” 

“Frees us up,” Tilly answers, unperturbed. “Really, it’s a lot more fun and much less deadly than this was, most of the time.”

“Deadly seems like something you’d like to avoid.”

“We would—“ Michael would say more, but one of the creatures, five limbed with glistening white scales, stands behind Philippa, leveling its weapon. 

“Down!” She yells, but Philippa moves faster, she whirls, impossibly quick and fires, the bolts cross each other in the air, singeing it crisp. It reeks of ozone.

Tilly didn’t move, Michael lunges for her, but then she’s down, tackled by black leather.

Burnt leather, and that copper stink.

“Tilly?”

“I’m all right, I’m all right. She got me.” 

“Philippa?”

“It’s a graze.” Her voice is level, even, betraying none of how much it has to fucking hurt.

“Let me see.”

“Michael, it’s fine.”

“You got shot?” Tilly says, her eyes brighter than they were when she was being shot at and huge in her face. “You got shot for me?”

“Don’t take it personally.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Let me see, Philippa.”

She holds her hand over her left side, covering the burn in her coat. The blood must be slow, seeping, but Michael can smell it. “It’s a flesh wound.”

“Come back to the shuttle, we can patch you up.”

“It’s fine.”

“We have a much better medkit than whatever you’ve stolen,” Michael insists. “I promise.” 

“Please,” Tilly adds, and she gets to her feet, offering her hand to help Philippa up. “It’s the least we can do.”

Another eye roll. “Fine.” She stands easily, back perfectly straight, but she keeps her hand on the wound. It hurts.

Michael flips open her communicator, but it’s silent. 

Tilly tries hers and shakes her head. “Must have been tetryon disruptors, those always wreak havoc on communicators. Nasty stuff.” She looks at Philippa again, studying her. “We should take one.”

“We should take all of them,” Philippa corrects. “If Starfleet doesn’t want them, I can trade them.” 

Collecting all the weapons gives Michael a chance to study the heads of their attackers. Their single eyes are silvery, almost reflective. Perhaps they use some kind of infrared? What did they want? Michael and Tilly's mission was purely scientific. Gritriskuu artifacts are interesting to a xeno anthropologist but not worth anything that she knows of. It's been awhile since she tracked the open markets. Clutching the disruptors in her hands, she follows Tilly and Philippa towards the shuttle. Tilly hasn't moved from Phiippa's side, and even now she follows her like an honor guard. 

The air still stinks of blood.

Michael leaves the disruptors in a pile on the floor of the shuttle and heads for the medkit. Tilly leaves them to it, picking up one of the weapons and turning it over in her hands. 

"Too bad your leather's not disruptor proof."

"I liked this jacket."

"Sorry." Michael takes out the laser scalpel and tilts her head towards the bench. "It might be easiest if you lie down."

"It's a flesh wound, Michael I've had far worse."

"And I'm not a doctor, so, if you don't want to lose a rib or something, lie down." 

Phiippa smiles a little, but the sharpness of her breath when she sits, then lies down tugs at Michael. Even another eyeroll can't hide that it hurts. Slicing open her jacket and the leather beneath with the scalpel, Michael studies the wound. The deep black is the char she expects, but there's blood seeping from the center, smeared on Philippa's stomach down towards her hip. 

"You're bleeding, that's odd for a disruptor." She touches Philippa's skin near the edge of the wound, oddly enough remembering her Philippa talk her through repairing a phaser wound the first time one of their team was hurt. Clear the dead tissue, assess the potential muscle, nerve or organ damage. A dermal regenerator can handle the basics, but they'll need to take it easy. Nerves need to traced, checked. 

"They're tetryon-based," Tilly says behind her head. Something clicks and Tilly fires the weapon out of the shuttle, back towards the stones they landed on. "We need to get her to a starbase or a starship, preferably at least a Constitution-class."

"What?"

"I'm not going to a starbase--" Philippa sits up, but that cracks her composure. 

She winces. Former Emperor Philippa Georgiou who never shows pain, has her hand pressed to the disruptor burn, and blood seeps red around her fingers. 

"Lie back down."

"Just fix it, and I'll be on my way." She starts to stand, ignoring the pain. Michael reaches up but it's Tilly who stops her.

She stares down the Emperor who has frightened her so much as if she's speaking as a captain. "Tetryon-based disruptors have a degenerative effect on living tissue, it'll bleed, and keep bleeding, the muscle tissue around the wound will degrade, the nerves will die, we have to get you to a very advanced sickbay as soon as possible or this will kill you." 

"It's a flesh wound.'

"You know weapons," Tilly insists, putting another hand on the Emperor's shoulder. "You know more about weapons that anyone I know and that scares me a little. A lot. You know what this is."

Philippa stares at Tilly, then looks at Michael, meeting her eyes for a moment before she has to look away. She blinks, too many times. "In my world, this means death. I would rather Michael did not watch me die again."

"A starbase can cure you! They remove the damaged tissue and regenerate the rest using cryotechniques and a vacuum chamber because the tetryon decay is oxygen-activated.. The Vosoxi technique was developed on Betazed three years ago in response to the proliferation of tetryon-based weapons," Tilly says, turning to Michael for help. "Dr. Culber told me about the paper he was reading. A starbase could do this."

"You'd rather slink away and die, really, Philippa?"

Sitting up makes it bleed quicker, and copper fills the air, heavy and harsh, mixed with the reek of burnt flesh. 

"I'm finding a starbase," Tilly says, leaving them to argue. She shuts the shuttle hatch, and Philippa can't get up with Michael right in front of her. 

Philippa can't even look at her. 

"You're going to be all right."

"Of course you'd say that."

"Lie back down, let me try and stop the bleeding."

"Why?" Philippa shuts her eyes. Is it the light? Does she not want to look? "I'm just going to bleed through."

"If I bandage it, you might bleed out a little slower. We're a long way from  _ Discovery _ and I don't know how far from a starbase."

"And not jumping through space with your mushrooms."

Michael swallows the retort that she will beg Stamets and Saru personally if she needs to. Philippa is going to live. Putting aside the dermal regenerator, she grabs the bandages,  and eases Philippa's hand off the wound. Putting pressure on it makes her hiss.

"How can it burn if my nerves are dying?"

"Technically they're being undone, the myelin sheaths are being stripped away, it's really very painful, and designed to be so to make you more compliant in an interrogation." Tilly stops her explanation, and her wince visceral is more than any of Philippa's. "Sorry."  

"Starbase, Tilly, what's the closest starbase?"

"Nineteen, Starbase Nineteen is only ninety-three minutes away if we push the shuttle to maximum warp, we could probably make it in less if I took power from the shields and other non-essential systems, provided we didn't get attacked or--"

"Do it."

"Yes, Commander, sir, Michael." 

Philippa smiles, now playful, with her blood dripping onto the deck. "I see discipline is important to you."

"I didn't have a rank until after the war, she's allowed to forget."

"I see." Philippa somehow retains her smile, and it's better than hissing in pain or trying not to cry, so Michael tries to hold onto that, not to think about the heat of Philippa's blood soaking through the bandages. "Who's your captain now?"

"Not important."

"Starfleet secrets?" Philippa smiles again, but her forehead furrows. If they disruptor blast gets through the abdominal wall, starts eating at her liver, her intestines, the surgery will be much more complicated, and nothing in the galaxy hurts like a belly wound. She can't even cauterize this. The edges visible outside the bandage aren't black anymore, but red, seeping, oozing. Michael press down hard, kneeling on the deck. 

"This one feels temporary as wll," Michael admits. "I don't know if it's because I'm a little nervous that something will again go wrong, or if I resent that I haven't moved up to the captaincy, or Saru--"

"The tough Kelpien?"

She still has her terrible sense of humor. 

"I almost thought it would be him."

Philippa nods at that, her gaze lingering on Michael's face. "Not you."

"Oh no, I haven't earned that back."

"Yet," Tilly reminds her from the helm. "You'll be captain."

"Thanks Tilly."

Philippa smiles again, eyes closing. Maternal, proud, like Amanda and Sarek but deeply ruthless underneath. Michael should just kill her way to the top, not wait to be recognized and promoted on merit. Earning it means something different in this universe. 

“Stay with me.”

“Michael?” Tilly touches her shoulder, drawing her attention. “I’ve locked in the autopilot, and I’ve got our journey down to eighty-one minutes, maybe eighty-two.”

“That’s great, Tilly. Thank you.”

“We need to give her electrolytes, fluids, we’ve got some water in the rations, I could mix them with electrolytes, make it isotonic, try and keep her blood pressure up. If only we had a replicator. Maybe we can...”

“Okay, Tilly, that’s good.”

Tilly squeezes her shoulder. “You’re not listening, but that’s all right. I’ll work on it. I like puzzles. Maybe there’s a way to use the dermal regenerator to polarize her tissue and try and to slow the cellular degradation caused by the tetryon disruptor.” 

“I thought you liked science, Michael,” Philippa says, her voice deeper, raspier than it was. Her eyes open, but she looks past Michael, past Tilly. How much of her blood soaks the bench beneath her? How much is in the carpet beneath Michael’s knees? 

“It’s hard to think right now.”

“Under pressure is the best time to think.” 

“Now you sound like her.”

“I read her journals.” Philippa swallows, and Tilly gently places a hypo on her neck. It hisses, and Tilly stars fusses with something else. “She thought so much of you. With good reason, of course. I think she’d be proud of you, regaining you commission, stopping the war. I know I am.”

“You’d be more proud if I had destroyed Qo’Nos.”

“Yes, that would have been better for your Federation, safer, but you chose the hard way.”

Tilly makes one of those faces and Michael smiles at her. Her presence is a gift. 

“We do that.”

“It seems to have made your galaxy no less dangerous.”

“The Vosoxi technique was invented on Betazed, probably by a doctor you, and the other me, subjugated.” 

“So I should be grateful, the weaker species you’ve kept alive will save my life?” 

“I’ll be grateful,” Michael says, taking the next bandage from Tilly and pressing it down. Philippa’s going pale, her lips aren’t pink anymore, and they’re still an hour away. “I’ll be grateful for you.”

Philippa lifts her hand, touching Michael’s arm without any warmth in her fingers. “I won’t die on you.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“Michael—“ Tilly warns, staring at the tricorder. It beeps mournfully, echoing Philippa’s thready heartbeat. “We need to do something.”

“You’ll come up with something. Sodium lactate solution, isotonic. You thought you could scavenge from our rations.”

“Right, I can do that. Emergency rations have electrolyte packets, if I dissolve them in the right solution, it should be right.”

Philippa squeezes Michael’s arm, drawing her attention. Michael has to lean down to hear her, “Tell her, she’ll hardly be able to make it worse.” 

“What did she say?” 

“You can’t make it worse.”

Tilly laughs that uncomfortable, desperate little laugh that makes Michael just want to hug her and promise it’ll be fine. 

“Right, well, with that vote of confidence...” she trails off, then forces herself to smile. “You know, she’s going to be okay, starbases have great medical bays. I know it’s hard though, because she looks just like your captain and...”

“Thanks.”

“And I’m here, okay? I’m right over here.”

Philippa’s grip tightens on her arm again, drawing her down so she can speak. When her Philippa died, it was quick, the light went out of her eyes and she was gone. If this takes her, it’ll be slow and hot, while she bleeds out in Michael’s hands. Her heart’s still beating, and she has breath, hold onto those thoughts. Tilly’s working on something, they might be able to get her to stabilize. 

“Of course, we don’t have an IV infuser, so I’ll have to use the hypo.”

“But you can do that.”

“I’ve made two liters of sodium lactate solution, which should help tie her over. It’s not two liters of plasma, but it’s something. Two liters of fluid, milliliters at a time, no problem. That’s what autopilots for.” 

Tilly works like a metronome is driving her. Fill the hypo, press it into the veins in Philippa’s arm, in her neck. The little hisses ground Michael in reality, falling in sync with Philippa’s thready heartbeat, and way her breathe seems to be slower, harder. Her lips are pale, more gray than pink, and her eyes haven’t been open for the last half hour. Michael can’t read the tricorder and her knees and shoulders are numb. She holds blood-soaked bandages in place with wooden fingers. Beneath the fabric, Philippa’s flesh melts away, breaking up cell by cell, and there’s nothing she can do. 

The shuttle leaps through space, pulling them along. Tilly runs out of fluid eventually, and there’s nothing else to mix up. It’s probably all seeping into the carpet, soaking the bench with the rest of Philippa's blood. Maybe it would have been more logical to let her go. Save her from slow, agonizing, death. 

Tears slip silently from Philippa’s closed eyes, and at some point her hand found Michael’s wrist and she holds her. There’s still strength there, and Michael clings to that with all of her heart. She’s still here. 

“I hated first aid training at the academy,” Michael says, needing something to fill the silence. 

“You did? It’s so logical, why would you hate it?” Tilly reaches for the tricorder and taps it, moving it further from Michael’s view. “She’s fine, I just, didn’t want it to beep at you and freak you out. She’s fine, we’re almost there.” 

“Following the steps made sense to me, treating people, that’s easy, but I never got the emotional part of it. How do you sit there, trying to keep someone alive? What do you tell them if it looks bad, if they might not make it. Other there, they end people. One quick move with a knife, and no one bleeds out slowly.”

“Over there is not what we want to be like. Sure, this is fucking terrifying, and I don’t know if I’ll ever stop smelling blood, and I still don’t know what to do because I like to fix things and I can’t fix things. I can’t make her stop bleeding and that should be me, really, because I was the one who was going to get shot and then she got shot instead.”

“It’s all right.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it is going to be all right.”

“That’s the captain in you,  you know that?” Tilly sits back, smiling a little. It’s such a shift that Michael almost wants to smile back. 

“The captain?”

“You want me to be okay. To know that it’s all right. You’re losing your captain, your mother, and you want me to be okay.”

Philippa’s hand squeezes and Michael jumps. “You told her I was your mother?” 

“You are my mother.” Maybe there’s no point in burying it, softening it with other worlds and realities. She’s lost one mother, and gained Amanda. No harm will come from having another. 

“ _ Her _ mother.” Her Michael, she's willing to let the Michael in front of her go, not to fight. 

“And mine,” Michael leans close, making sure Philippa can hear her. “You came to save me, you saved Tilly, you didn’t have to, but I know. I know how you feel. You’re not my captain, not my Philippa, but you’re my mother. Let’s just go with that.”

She couldn’t save her own mother; Michael listened to her die. She had to leave Philippa, had to watch her body go slack and still. This one, she can keep alive. She will. After an eternity they're in comm range and drop out of warp. 

Michael picks Philippa up, holding her against her chest with stiff arms. She aches from not moving, from pressing down, but she’s adrenaline makes her fearless. Unstoppable. 

“Medical emergency,” Tilly informs the hail as they make contact with the starbase. “Medical emergency, requesting immediate transport to the infirmary, lock on to Commander Burnham's signature.” 

Tractor beams catch the shuttle, and transporters grab them, pulling them into the yellow light. 

“Stay with me,” she whispers. It's the second time she's held her and tried to save her life. This time Phiilppa can't even complain that she hasn't been allowed to die with honor, or die alone.

She has a place here, Michael doesn't know what it is yet, but it's starts with her. "Mother, you stay with me." 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Afsaneh Paris looks after Michael and the injured ghost she bought to her station. She talks to her old friend Kat, who has been too long without an old friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> many thanks to holdouttrout and ericine. You're the best.

Her cup's lukewarm to the touch, which means the tea inside is cold. Afsaneh Paris will drink it anyway, because she hates to waste a cup of good tea, but it won't be as good. She sits back in her chair, picks up another PADD and keeps working through the never ending stream of information. Three starships are docking later that evening, two for repairs put off during the war, one needs a baryon sweep, which will take most of tomorrow and they'll have the entire crew on board for several days shoreleave. Resource usage will be higher than normal, she'll need to update logistics, make sure they have enough raw materials, replicator rations...

Pressing her fingers into the center of her forehead, she picks up the next report from the astrometric sciences. It's almost comforting to read about ion storms and black holes for a moment or two because they always write their reports so matter-of-factly. Data flows when it's simply scientific interpretations. She'd love to stay there, keep reading the flawlessly dry report on how the level two ion storm is affecting the asteroid belt of the Beta Octantis system. 

If only she had the time. Approving that, she sets it aside for the next, and the next, sending some back for more information, asking questions, trying not to lose herself in the very thorough explanation of how many more self-sealing stembolts they need to repair meteor damage on the Uvukii Six colony. The headache gnaws rather than pulses, which is an improvement. One more PADD and she can get up and replicate more tea, maybe even drink it before it's cold. 

Her security officer interrupts, standing tall and blue in her doorway, antennae kinked in concern. "Captain? We have a shuttle coming out of warp, unscheduled, transponder's from the  _ USS Discovery _ . She's currently in the Nezgola sector, ma'am, we'll try to raise them."

Afsaneh drops the PADD to her desk, leaving her chair and thoughts of tea behind. "Does the shuttle seem damaged, lieutenant?"

"Negative, ma'am, they're just reaching communications distance now--"

“Medical emergency,” the shuttle begins, that voice about sharp with worry. "Medical emergency, requesting immediate transport to the infirmary, lock on to Commander Burnham's signature.”

Michael.

Philippa's Michael. The daughter she chose out in the stars. Is she hurt? 

Afsaneh nods to her security chief. "Beams them to the infirmary, Lieutenant Chora, I'll meet them down there. Land the shuttle, debrief our guest, and inform  _ Discovery _ we have their people."

"Yes, Captain." 

Not every emergency demands the captain's personal attention, but Lieutenant Chora merely nods. Her antennae move slowly, quirked in interest, in curiosity, but she'll save her questions. There is work to do. 

Philippa's Michael. The daughter who betrayed her, got her killed fighting the Klingons...that old rage wells up like freezing water in her stomach. Pippa would never blame Michael, would never stand for Afsaneh blaming her either and yet part of her wants to hate, to snap and eviscerate, because Michael Burnham took Pippa from the galaxy, and it's as if one of the great stars has gone out. She was the first lost of a war they just kept on losing. So many of her fellow captains, of the admirals are dead.

She's buried good friends, old friends, and Pippa. Stood in front of too many flag draped empty coffins and listened to words of pain before she shipped medals off to families who would never see that loved one again.

The turbolift shuts her away from the eyes of her crew, and she holds her posture. Facing Michael is necessary. She sent the telescope when Michael was released, cried with pride alone in her quarters when she was reinstated.  _ You're right, Pippa. They forgave her. She's going to be a great captain one day, just as you taught her, as you wanted, as you planned-- _

_ You won't see it.  _

Her eyes sting, but she banishes the thought. She can grieve Pippa back in her quarters. Stare into the stars with longing again when she's alone. 

The infirmary hums when she enters, and no one greets her. None of the nurses even notice her presence, and they swarm like bees over the center biobed. 

Michael Burnham stands back a few meters, at attention, blood soaked into her uniform.

Fresh blood, by the smell. 

Not hers. She stands too erect for that. Her whole attention lies forward, on the body on the table. A small woman, dark hair, humanoid, pale as old bone. 

Their patient wears leather, not a Starfleet uniform, and the three nurses around her start cutting it free from pale flesh. Droplets of blood stain the carpet between Michael and the biobed. 

She carried her here, clutched to her chest. Michael's uniform carries blood like a medal. 

Doctor Rosyx's voice remains level, calm like the darkness between stars. "Prep four units of plasma, three of synthetic blood, it'll run on through as we prepare for the Vosoxi procedure. If her blood pressure keeps dropping, we'll need to speed the infusion rate, use her leg veins if you can't get a good seal on her arm."

"Cryo units ready, captain."

Through the pristine white uniforms of her medical staff, the hand on the table moves. Afsaneh barely catches the motion, but when those somehow familiar fingers twitch, Michael steps forward.

The biobed whimpers in concern, reporting that moment of consciousness. 

The voice of a ghost whispers through the chaos. "Michael--"

"I'm here."

Michael steps closer, not thinking, driven by the bare heart in her chest. 

The dark hair on the bed is only too familiar, even if it's too smooth. Pippa never liked her hair straight. 

One of the nurses grabs Michael, steers her to the bed. "Keep her conscious, talk to her."

"You--"

Ice wraps Afsaneh's heart in a death grip. Pippa's voice will always command her attention.

"I'm here, Mother."

That draws a smile, a curling of phantom lips that should not be. 

This is her, the other Philippa, the one from a universe of death and loathing. Yet she smiles like the woman Afsaneh loves. 

Michael holds her hand, wrapping it up in her fingers, standing still so the nurses can prep around her. 

"She's lucky this was on the right side," Doctor Rosyx says, sensing Afsaneh's presence even though her eyes haven't moved from her patient. Her telepathic abilities have always made her efficient like that. She can report to her captain without taking more than the tiniest amount of focus from her patient. "Degenerative tetryon disruptor, I've read about them but never seen one up close. Her flesh is melting on the biobed, but the liver's much easier to rebuild than her spleen, or the intestines. She is fortunate."

"Doctor, the cryo units are ready."

"Commander, tell her she's going to be fine and step back."

Michael obeys, leaning down so close to the face that is not Philippa Georgiou's that they are cheek-to-cheek for a moment. 

"Just hold on."

"You called me mother."

"You'll have to live to argue with me about it." Michael's voice cracks like ion lightning, sizzling along Afsaneh's nerves. She places a hand on Michael's shoulder, draws her back while Doctor Rosyx sedates the Philippa who is not hers. Not theirs.

"Doctor--"

"Be aggressive in the margins, once you've frozen the wound, transfer her to the surgical bay" Rosyx orders, burying her attention in the blue glow of the cryo units. "If we miss anything, we could kill her, a single damaged cell could start another degenerative cellular cascade. Be thorough."

"Yes, Doctor."

"Rosyx's is the best in this half of the quadrant," Afsaneh says, pulling her back. "Perhaps all of it." 

"She was on planet, Captain, we were attacked and she intervened to protect us, Ensign Tilly and I--"

"You don't need to report right now, Commander. Just breathe."

Perhaps the report will steady her. Maybe she needs to be Starfleet right now. 

Kat's top secret message said things were different in the other universe. Philippa was her mother there in name, as well as her heart. That was what Michael banked on, bringing her here. The connection that might keep someone from that universe of pain on the level.

Might even help her find heroism.

"She wouldn't stop bleeding."

Afsaneh rubs her shoulder, moving her hand in slow circles. "You got her here."

"We don't even know what they were after. The museum didn't have anything considered dangerous or especially valuable."

"Maybe you were just in the wrong place."

"She stepped in front of Ensign Tilly, saved her life, saved mine."

"Of course she did." No version of Philippa would let her people be hurt, Afsaneh knows that as she knows her own heart. "It's all right."

She steers Michael back another step, then towards a chair. Afsaneh leaves her for a moment and returns with more tea, pressing one cup into Michael's hands. She sits beside her, watching the white figures flit around Philippa like birds. 

"I'm sorry."

"For what now?"

"It must be hard to--"

Patting Michael's shoulders, she sips her tea with her left hand. "Letting her go was difficult, seeing another her...it is a different thing. I know she's not Pippa."

"There are moments."

"Of course."

"But she's not--" Michael breaks, her breath shuddering in her chest. 

"Doctor Rosyx is the best, which is why I have her." 

"So you said."

"Do you think I would exaggerate?" 

Somehow, Michael smiles, weary and shy. "No, Philippa said you were the fussiest captain she knew about who you had on your crew."

"She took in all these misfits, little projects. I prefer my crew to be the best when I get them, so I can find the ways to make them even more extraordinary." Saying that with the height of pride gives Michael enough of a moment to breathe, but she's still shaky. 

All that adrenaline, all that fear...Afsaneh can almost hear Kat in her head:  _ it'll take time _ . 

"Still, I'm sorry."

"I had hoped I'd meet her."

Michael turns to her, staring. "You did?"

"Another Philippa? An emperor? Who would not want to see what that's like?' Drinking her own tea, she half-wishes it could be whiskey. Not on duty, not in sickbay, but when this is over...there's that bottle from Kat. 

"She's terrifying."

"And you saved her life." Squeezing Michael's wrist, she smiles, trying to soften all that guilt. Michael worries like her daughter, and has a heart too soft like her son. Philippa always said that beneath the Vulcan shell, her Michael was all heart. 

"There's good there, even though she thinks Kelpiens are dinner and genocide is a good way to win a war, there's good in her. Honor, a weird kind of faith." Michael drinks her tea like it's penance and sets down the cup. "Maybe I'm trying to hard to see it."

"You sound like her when you say that."

"Oh?"

"My Pippa was so optimistic."

"You're not."

"Of course not, the galaxy is a place of wonder and death, and both deserve our respect, Pippa saw the stars, not the void between them."  

"I don't know what this Philippa sees when she looks at the stars," Michael says, lowering her head into her hands. "But she sees her daughter when she looks at me."

Michael was the daughter Pippa chose, the one of her heart. Was it similar? Do the heartless denizens of that other universe love? 

Michael answers the unasked question. "She adopted me, that universe's me, when my parents died. I called her mother."

She could have called Pippa that, if she'd wanted. Pippa never paused whenever Afsaneh's children needed another mother. She held them as if they were hers, gone to their graduations and listened to their heartbreaks. She'd given Michael that same devotion and affection, like a daughter. It was never said, not to Michael, but they spoke of her over subspace, and she fell into their conversations as often as Afsaneh's own children. 

No wonder Michael couldn't let this Philippa go. 

"Having her here is a good thing, don't tell yourself otherwise."

"I tell myself it's selfish and insane, and I don't care. I don't care at all." 

"Good."

"Good?"

"Starfleet worries too much about what's right and proper, sometimes...you have to follow your gut."

Any ghost of Pippa was worth it. 

"I'm grateful she's here."

Michael contemplated that idea, surely looking for another way to make herself suffer. 

"You must get cleaned up, eat, replicate a new uniform."

Michael gives her that  _ never, captain _ ,  _ I'm going to stay, captain _ , look and maybe it would have worked on Philippa. She was softer. 

"Go. I will stay."

"Captain..."

"My Pippa sat with me the nights my children were born. She waited with me while medical rebuilt my leg after I was on the losing side of a bulkhead."

"She looks like her, even sounds like her, but she's not yours." That hint of warning is sweet. Even without knowing everything, Michael wants to protect her. 

"All lives on the station are mine."

Michael laughs a little. She'll have heard that from Philippa, but Pippa was softer about it. 

"Remember that when you are captain, everyone is yours, from the displaced emperors to the commanders with an overwhelming sense of guilt." Afsaneh finishes her tea and takes a breath, finding her center to wait. At least now it'll be easy to do something about her headache. 

"I should--"

"Listen to me and go change, find Ensign Tilly and your guest quarters, change so you're not wearing your bloody uniform all around my station." 

"Yes, Captain."

"If something changes, I will contact you, you have my word." She takes Michael's bloody hands in hers and squeezes them. "Go, take care of yourself then you can return." 

Michael takes that dismissal with a nod, and her anguished eyes flick back towards the surgical bay. 

Afsaneh paces to the sink, washes the blood from her own hands and presses the towel into her forehead. Heading back into the main infirmary, she gets a hypospray for her headache from one of the nurses then sets Michael's cup into the replicator and orders herself coffee. She's not going to sleep now, might as well embrace it. Taking over Doctor Rosyx's office, she taps her her communicator padd. 

"Lieutenant Chora, I need a secure channel to Admiral Cornwell."

"Yes, Captain, right away." 

"And I'll be in the infirmary tonight with our guest, inform Commander Chen she has first shift tomorrow. Everything calm up there, Chora?"

"Absolutely still, as we like it." 

"Good, keep it that way."

"Yes, ma'am."

The comm channel changes to the familiar image of Starfleet Command. Kat's desk on her cruiser is empty, and it takes a moment for her to appear from the darkness, just in a tank top. She should have checked where Kat was before she called, but it's hard to tell where Kat is on any given day. 

"Afsaneh, sorry," she yawns into her hand and turns on a light behind her. "What is it?"

"Hello Admiral, forgive me for interrupting your sleep, ma'am."

"You don't give a fuck about protocol, Sunny."

Afsaneh winces at the nickname and lifts her coffee as if it's something worth toasting with. "I don't, but you worked hard for that fancy badge, allow me to grovel appropriately."

"Or you could get to the point so I can go back to sleep."

"I could, but where's the fun in that, Kat?"

Kat sits up, brushing her hair back. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your midnight company?"

"Pippa's here."

Kat sits up, blinking herself awake. "Since when?"

"Michael Burnham turned up with her bleeding all over my deck about two hours ago. Your little top secret deep cover agent is in surgery now."

"You know that's just--"

"I know you tied yourself in fucking knots to justify her, yes, don't worry, all her records are sealed, highly classified."

"Good." Kat leaves the bed and heads for her replicator. "Coffee, black."

"Kat, you can go back to sleep. I only need to snap at you a little."

She taps the controls on her desk, sipping her coffee like it has some kind of magic. "I'm diverting course to Starbase Nineten."

"A visit from Starfleet Command, our here? I'll press my dress uniform."

"You're an ass, Sunny."

"It's part of my charm." 

"What happened?' Kat asks, sitting down in her desk, coffee in hand. "Is she all right?"

"Firefight with some Lemarians, Michael says she appeared like an avenging angel-"

Kat raises her eyebrows. 

Afsaneh shrugs and continues,  "-Demon, choose your metaphor, and saved them. Took a hit from a tetryon disruptor meant for an ensign."

"She protected someone?"

"Ensign Tilly."

"They've worked together, perhaps--"

"Perhaps your bloodthirsty tyrant has a heart?" Afsaneh stares across subspace at her dear old friend. "If she has a heart, it's was about ten centimeters away from being liquified like her liver." 

"Damn."

"Rosyx's has her, she'll be fine." 

"I hope you know Rosyx's turned down Starfleet Medical again for you."

"It's nicer out here. I don't give a fuck about your paperwork."

"Which is why you'll never make admiral."

"Too bad, Kat, you make it look so glamorous."

"It is, flying through space in the middle of the night, fielding calls from your junior officers." Kat pauses, smiling over her coffee before she breaks her control. "I'm sorry."

"No, no, you don't get to feel bad about this."

"I gave her the pardon, let her off the ship."

"And stopped the war. I'm glad part of her is out there, among the stars. Even having the wrong Pippa is better than the void of her absence."

"I take it you haven't spoken to her."

"She only had time to worry about her daughter before she went into surgery."

"You know how much Michael meant to our Pippa."

Afsaneh leans forward, touching the corner of the screen. "I know."

Kat's hand meets hers, holding her across light years. "I'm so sorry."

"We all knew what we were signing up for, and you've lost. The Gabe you saw was--"

"A cruel, would-be-tyrant from another universe who--" Kat breaks off, shaking her head at the screen. She downs half her coffee and sets down the cup. "Be careful."

"I know."

"If she knows you, if your relationship is at all like it was here was--"

"I won't make your mistake, Kat."

"He felt like him, but sometimes I wonder if I just wanted to believe so badly that I--"

"Don't make it messier than it is. Let someone else analyze you."

"I have, I'm trying..."

"You can tell me about it when you get here."

"Thanks."

"Of course, it's not every day an admiral visits us way out here..." Mocking Kat makes her smile, and helps her chase the tears away. "I'll see you in a few hours."

"Get some sleep."

"You know I won't but thank you for the suggestion."

Kat presses her hand closer to the screen, leaning in. "Take care of yourself, be cautious."

"I'm as tough as they come."

"I know, but you loved her."

"I do," Afsaneh corrects, pressing her fingers into Kat's before she lifts her hand to her chest. "I always will."

"I'll bring us a bottle."

"We might need two," Afsaneh meets her friend's eyes. "Try to sleep, Kat." 

"You too."

"I usually try," Afsaneh teases. "Unfortunately, there's a whole universe out there that seems against it." 

"Isn't that the truth, goodnight Afsaneh."

"Goodnight, madame Admiral."

Kat rolls her eyes. "Cornwell out."

Leaning back, Afsaneh finishes her coffee while she wonders how Kat's coping with knowing Gabriel wasn't her Gabriel. He touched her, kissed her, even slept with her, without being the man she loved. 

And Kat knew something. She's too sensitive not to have felt something was wrong, and he disappeared and they buried him too. They tried not too, but it was impossible. They barely had a moment, a stolen part of an hour to toast their goodbyes to a friend. 

Kat's had to confess her worries over subspace. Rant about the betrayal in her bed over the comms because they just haven't had the time to sit and talk like real people since  _ Discovery _ came back with her passenger and her stories of another land. A holographic Kat on her sofa isn't the same thing. 

The false Gabriel lied to her and corrupted the memory of a good man. He left Kat scrambling for her feelings when he disappeared. 

Afsaneh will walk into this with eyes open. This is not her Pippa, but that's been said, that's already out there. There will be no lies or manipulation. She can break her own heart. 

And she will. It's Pippa, and Afsaneh's always had a weakness in the shape of her. Time crawls when she lets her thoughts wander so she picks up repair reports, ship movements, all the mindless task she needs to accomplish can fill the hours until Doctor Rosyx finishes saving Philippa Georgiou.

The one they had a chance to save, anyway. 

It's just after oh-five hundred when Rosyx emerges, waiting in the doorway for Afsaneh to look up.

Rosyx smiles. "She'll be fine."

"I expected nothing less."

"She needs to rest, and I'll need to keep a shunt in for a few days, just to make sure everything internal is healed and remaining that way. We rebuilt more than half her liver, removed part of her small intestine. She's confined to sickbay for at least twenty-four hours, she shouldn't leave the station for a week. 

"I hear she might be a difficult patient."

"It's likely." Rosyx shakes her blonde hair free from her surgical cap. "I did the work of miracles keeping her alive, why would she be grateful enough to hold still and let herself heal?"

"We never are."

Doctor Rosyx sinks into the chair across from the desk and sets down her hat, rubbing at her gown. "If you want to see her, she'll be out of the anesthesia for a little while, then she'll probably fall asleep again. Which is when you should sleep, if you're going to admit you're mortal and need that."

"Maybe to you."

"I'd pretend I didn't hear it anyway."

"Thank you, doctor."

Rosyx nods, yawning into her hand. "This one was a good challenge, but now I could live without even seeing degenerative cellular collapse like that again." She shudders, leaning back and shutting her eyes. "Healthy cells turn to soup right in front of your eyes, that infects the next cell, all the apoptosis triggers are muted, and tissue becomes a necrotic slurry that the blood can't fight. Blood seeping out of veins that turn to mush." 

If she was weaker, her stomach would twist, but she's past that now. "The cryogenic procedure worked?"

"We froze the affected cells, cutting them out before they had a chance to break down. The margins of the wound expanded by four hundred percent before we got it under control. If it had been much more damage to her intestines, the blood loss might have been fatal. It's so hard to stop the bleeding once those go. Her rescuers should be commended. Giving her fluids intravenously, however simple, greatly increased her chances."

"I'll pass that along."

"You should, that poor commander needed some good news. Her pain was as vivid as my patient's." Rosyx folds her hands in her lap, as if she's about to sleep right here in her office. 

Afsaneh taps the comm panel. Even if Burnham is asleep, she'll want to know. "Commander Burnham, our guest is out of surgery and recovering. Doctor Rosyx says that your and Ensign Tilly's quick thinking substantially increased her chance of survival."

"Thank you, Captain. Please pass my appreciation to Doctor Rosyx."

"I shall, her ego expects it. Sleep now, and you can fuss in the morning, Commander."

"False modesty helps no one," Doctor Rosyx mutters, her black eyes shut. 

"Yes, Captain. Goodnight," Michael finishes.

Patting the doctor's shoulder in thanks, Afsaneh leaves her to sleep and walks into the recovery area. The young nurse knows not to bother her, and continues setting up the monitoring equipment around Philippa's still body. Philippa's dark hair lies flat on the bed, pulled to the left over her shoulder. It's too straight. Her Philippa left the waves in. Her color is also too pale, sallow the way too many blood transfusions always leaves someone.

Her clothes have been taken, and the pale blue gown only makes her look smaller, more vulnerable. The Pippa in front of her could be the one who caught Rivorek fever the last year at the Academy or got banged up on that shuttle mission through the unstable nebula. The one she spent so many nights with at the Academy that their beds were always warm. Kat's talked about her golden armor, and weapons, of a ship that fed on the mycelial power of that other universe and nearly destroyed all of them. 

She doesn't see a emperor, a refugee dictator or a pirate, running rampant through this galaxy. Afsaneh reaches down to stroke her forehead and she only sees her Pippa, down to the scar near her temple. What other paths did they walk together? What is she to this woman? Sister? Rival? Menace? Just another step on her way to the throne?

Or perhaps lover, or wife. Gaspard would tease her, until they lost Pippa, that she should at least think about marriage again. She's good at it, Pippa is too. Why not add that extra layer of comfort?  _ Be happy, Sunny. You were with me.  _

Afsaneh kisses Philippa's cool forehead, holds her face, rests her hand on her shoulder. "Don't fight Rosyx, dear. She's just as stubborn as you. Maybe more."

She takes the chair for a moment, holding Pippa's motionless hand in hers, watching her breathe. "You are a ghost, Kat was a little, but you're more than that. At least to me. I'll probably find out you murdered me yourself to take the throne, but, even so. You are safe here, I will protect you." 

Smoothing her hair, she squeezes that limp hand and waits, letting her heart do its fluttering now, before this Philippa proves they never loved each other. That they were mortal enemies, or some other nonsense.

Pippa's eyelids twitch. Her breathe catches just a little and the hand within Afsaneh's tugs at her.

"You're safe here," Afsaneh reminds her. "You're in the infirmary on Starbase Nineteen. You're going to be fine."

Her first attempt at speech is weak, barely more than a rasp, but she's Philippa Georgiou and if she wants to speak, her body will comply.

"Afsaneh?" Her eyes fight their way open. "You're here?"

"Yes, I'm here. Seems like I can't leave you alone for a moment without trouble."

"You came." Philippa looks through her, seeing another woman from another world. She's not her Philippa, but that look of affection, that warmth, could be. '"What happened?"

"Don't worry about it." How do you comfort a tyrant? What would her other self say? "They're dead."  It doesn't really matter who, the Lemarians, some Vulcan assassins, whatever memory Pippa's in, she's safe now. "You can rest."

"Afsaneh I-"

Am half-awake, sleeping off anesthesia and her new blood. She probably won't even remember this. 

"You're safe."

Pippa's sleepy eyes lock with hers. "Safe?"

"You may trust me." 

Her Philippa knew that deeply, knew that as she knew the hum of warp drive. This Philippa holds her hand as if she fears it'll melt away. 

"Sleep now, I will guard you."

Before her eyes close, Pippa's face softens, relaxing back into sleep. "You're here."

Lying her head down on the biobed, Afsaneh takes a breath, chasing the sting of her eyes that comes before tears. Pippa hasn't earned those yet, as much as she aches for them to be close. If Kat and Gabriel were together, why not them? Perhaps Pippa killed her husband in a fit of jealousy, or they ended them both together. 

Philippa's breath slows and grows even, and Afsaneh keeps her head down, letting herself believe the lie. 

Just for a little while. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> little random headcanons? Pippa's very patient and looks after Afsaneh when she gets hurt. Afsaneh's ex-husband lives on Earth and they're friends.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kat arrives to make sure everyone is all right. Philippa tries to figure uout where she fits in this universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for your patience, this took me awhile to work out and...I'll need another chapter. Maybe two.

Sometimes she only sleeps when they’re at warp. If they're already moving, they have a mission. She can sleep until someone needs her or until the ship stops. Katrina's accustomed to sleeping in chunks of time ar less than she should. Between meetings, between crises, she's not even sure how sleep deprived she was during the war or how she'll get better now that Starfleet Command is missing so many admirals.

They've said goodbye to good people. Good leaders, and they've lost captains, commanders. Starfleet is weak and the people she promotes keep dying but she has to protect them, let the newly promoted thrive long enough to become what they all need.

But it aches, gnaws at her. They should have time to grow into their positions, to be mentored, not face life and death alone and merciless. Some survived. Many didn't. She's still remembering all the new captains in her commander and who made first officer and perhaps that's why this cuts like it does. 

They lost Philippa, and this ghost isn't her, but she's the closest any of them have to a second chance. Her responsibility because she set her free into this universe.

Burnham says she was heroic, selfless, willing to die for two junior officers she turned to killers in her world. If the Terran Emperor can learn to value life, than Kat can trust herself to value it again. No one is irredeemable.

Except perhaps the other Lorca who--

She buries that for later. She's not ready. Afsaneh can rail at her and she'll yell back. It'll give her time to process, to actually drop her guard for awhile because Afsaneh can handle it. She doesn't need to be the perfect admiral in front of her. She'd never believe it anyway. 

Another two cups of coffee and they'll be there, or she could sleep. Another Philippa's dying, and she could sleep. She slept through plenty of deaths, and this time, they can save her. Afsaneh has her, and that's always been the safest place for Pippa to be. 

Kat rubs her forehead again, chasing the headache behind her eyes. Afsaneh has a good medical team. She'll heal but it will be rough. Tetryon-based disruptors are one of the brush fires she needs to stop before she's reading reports about dead children, bleeding out hours after they were hit in the crossfire. She replicates coffee and lifts up her reports. She needs to work or sleep, because there's no time for anything else. Not in the galaxy the way it is, not with Starfleet healing. 

Hopefully she's stopped the bleeding there.

For now. 

Ensign Tilly meets her at the spacedock, all apologetic because she is not Commander Burnham or Captain Paris or one of the command crew and she's really not good enough to be meeting an Admiral.

"It's the middle of the night, at ease." 

"Even so, Admiral." Ensign Tilly does not at all ease. Her Gabriel would have loved that about her, how she was so much like them a million years ago when Ensign Cornwell never knew how to stand at rest and Pippa could never seem to stand straight enough. Afsaneh always looked elegant, but she has that way. Even exhausted, she'll be beautiful. Always is. 

"Report, please." That should calm her, doing her job. 

"The Emperor-"

"Philippa Georgiou-" Kat corrects, careful to remain gentle, encouraging rather than harsh. 

"Right, still feels weird to call her that."

"Captain Georgiou was a hero, and my friend. It's strange to have two people so different share her name." She taps the door controls and starts towards the infirmary, Tilly falling into step behind her. "However, The Terran Emperor's existence is classified, and for the good of the Federation, and the galaxy as a whole, it's better if we just let this Philippa be Philippa Georgiou, even if we know better." 

"Yes, Admiral, of course."

Touching her shoulder, Kat sighs. "I know it's hard."

"It must be so much harder for you, you knew her." 

"Came up through the Academy together with all of them, Philippa, the real Captain Lorca, Captain Paris--"

Tilly's eyes grow round and wide. Kat's listing heroes, and the captain she knew as a murderer, but Tilly focuses on the last name. "She's not like I expected." 

"Paris?"

"Yes, her service record is so exact, so matter of fact..."

"And then she swears."

"I wasn't going to say that in particular, though it is often mentioned when people speak of working with her." Tilly smiles a little, but as they round the corner into the infirmary she tenses again. 

"She's to the point, and exact, in her way. I often tease her that there's a reason she leapt at the idea of being so far from Starfleet command."   

"Starbase Nineteen is quite a distance from Earth."

"Which is what I like about it," Afsaneh interrupts, walking out from the recovery room with her hand wrapped around coffee. "Takes longer for controlling, micromanaging admirals to arrive."

"Captain," Tilly answers, politely, staring at the coffee and obviously aware that there's been no protocol from Captain Paris. Nor will there be. 

"I brought you coffee, because you didn't sleep, even though you told me you would, Kat." She hands the coffee to Tilly and then hugs Kat tightly, squeezing her chest and at her touch everything aches. She's been gone so long, travelling, always flying. For a moment, the universe is still and familiar. "I must admit I am fond of one particularly stiff admiral."

"And not all captains are obnoxious heroes who never follow the rules and can't fill out paperwork after they save the day." She buries her thoughts in the smell of Afsaneh's hair, and for a moment, she could be back in the academy, waiting for Gabriel and Pippa to finish their work so they could go eat. "It's so good to see you."

"I look good. Unlike you, giving up sleeping is only going to make these permanent." Afsaneh taps her cheek, shaking her head. "But here, drink your coffee. Pippa's asleep, for now, and I have words to share with you before she wakes up again." 

Tilly raises her eyebrows, captains and admirals arguing is like moms fighting for ensigns, but she'll live. 

"It's better to argue with me in person anyway."

"I've always found it more fun." She tilts her head towards recovery walking Kat back towards their patient. "My doctor Rosyx says she's recovering well, but tetryon disruptors are a hellish device of slow death and suffering."

"Which is why they're banned in the Federation."

"Well, start banning them outside of the Federation."

They round the corner just in time for a sharp cry of pain and Michael's equally abrupt Vulcan cursing. 

"Don't move, you'll make it worse."

Philippa seems to be just as stubborn across universes, but she sounds the same as their Pippa did. "It's just sore."

"Philippa, you're bleeding."

Afsaneh moves like lightning, and she's at the biobed, catching Philippa's shoulder while Michael stares in horror at the dark spreading stain on her gown. Medical protocol would have sealed the wound neatly, there wouldn't even be a scar to reopen, but this is tetryon decay, Philippa's cells ripping themselves apart on a molecular level. 

"Fuck, Pippa, back in bed." Afsaneh taps her communicator. "Rosyx, we need you in recovery, now." 

Kat grabs a sheet, pressing it to the bleed without even acknowledging Pippa or Michael. Heal first, then discussion. "Get her back upon the bed."

Between the four of them, Philippa's up easily, but she groans again, and it's sharp. That would be the nerve damage starting to spread. It'll bleed like a vein's been nicked and ache like a burn that's still setting fire to her flesh. 

Kat presses down hard, trying to stop the blood, but it wells up, hot and red. She keeps her eyes on Pippa. She's not even really with them, still recovering from anesthesia, from the hell her body has been through. 

"Philippa, still," Afsaneh mutters. "Hold fucking still." She strokes her hair, staring her down. "You're safe here." 

"I don't want to restrain her," Michael says, her voice soft, gentle.

She'd hate that. Philippa isn't even really awake, she's been through so much that she's still in a kind of shock. Kat holds the sheets there, primitive treatment for a sophisticated method of torture.

Afsaneh strokes her cheek, then leans down close, kissing her gently. "Pippa, look at me, stay with me." 

And that drags her attention in a way nothing else could. Michael and Tilly are similarly entranced. Afsaneh has that power. When she wants to be, she's the most captivating thing in the room. 

That keeps her still when the doctor and her team arrive, the cryo units are out as soon as Kat moves her hand. They were ready for this. Kat watches, her stomach tight like it used to always get before surgeries. The wound is not a neat slicde, or a burn, but a strange red mass of flesh devouring itself. 

"Captain Paris, we're going to start," Dr. Rosyx warns and they move in tandem, touching Philippa's arms, her legs, surrounding her while Afsaneh strokes her face. 

Her Pippa would find a a way to smile, to laugh at them. This one just stares up, terror bright in her eyes, but it's fading. There's no safety in the other universe, trust and love are hard to come by, but here, Philippa's surrounded by emotions, wrapped in softness and care. She must hate it. 

"Look at me," Afsaneh repeats. "Stay with me." 

"Afsaneh."

"I'm here. So is Michael, and Kat, our very important Kat came all the way from the fancy land of Admirals."

Kat rolls her eyes, because she has to. They'll have this until Afsaneh gets promoted, then being an admiral will suddenly be a good thing. 

"Mother," Michael whispers, and that carries as much power as the kiss. "Trust us."

Trust is impossible there, and the hum of the cryo unit comes with a sharp hiss of pain. It fucking hurts, but they cant even numb her nerves before they seal off the damage. 

Philippa's eyes flick, quick with agony but she settles, calms. She recognizes them both in turn, her breath slowing. 

"That's it," Afsaneh says. "It's all right. You'll be fine." 

"We need to take her back to surgery," Doctor Rosyx says behind Kat. "Must have missed something." 

Afsaneh and Michael lean over her, soft but sure. She can't trust them the way their Philippa would, but the hiss of pain in her breath eases. "You'll be fine."

One of the nurses uses a hypo on her neck, putting her under and she fights it, eyes wide. 

"It's all right," Michael repeats. "You're safe here." 

"Doctors aren't as charming on the other side," Afsaneh mutters, holding Pippa's face. Her thumb runs over her cheekbone. "You're in good hands." 

"Hands that need space, Captain, Admiral." Doctor Rosyx waves them away and her staff circles around Philippa, ready to save her again. 

Kat touches Afsaneh's back, but it's Michael who needs to be calmed. She's already been too close to Pippa's death once, watching this again, even when she isn't the same, it's too much. 

"They'll get it. She'll be all right. It's closer to the surface now, most of it's gone." 

"She seemed fine."

"She will be fine, Doctor Rosyx's is one of the best." 

"I only have the best," Afsaneh reminds them. "Come on, Kat's hands are covered in blood and we need to eat, sleep, take care of ourselves so we can deal with her highness when she wakes up."

"I don't think she knows where she is."

"Shock is common after traumatic injuries," Kat reminds them, touching Michael again, wishing she could do something to soften the stiffness in her shoulders. "She'll recover."

"It's my fault."

"Technically mine," Tilly pipes up from behind them. "I'm the one who couldn't get out of the way."

"Blame is unnecessary." Afsaneh sighs, resting her hands on her stomach. "We'll listen to Kat, she is our leader."

Kat rolls her eyes. "How's your replimat?"

"Out here the Mediterranean tastes a little too much like the Iberian and the Persian's a little weak. I'm not as good at recruiting chefs as I am Starfleet." Afsaneh reaches for Michael, taking her hand. She could be one of her ensigns, or one of her children, the way she tugs her. "But, one of them is getting better at fesenjoon; she listens to me, as all wise people should."

"Not Philippa."

"Took the last one some time to learn. I suppose I'll just train this one." 

None of them argue with her, Michael makes a face that's so much like Pippa that Kat's eyes sting. She's hers, as much as she's Sarek's or Amanda's. Philippa helped raise her, mould her, and she's in her: a living legacy of the best of Philippa Georgiou. The Emperor tried to save Ensign Tilly and Michael, so there's good in her too. Maybe not as much as their Philippa, but something of her. They'll protect that as much as they can. Keep her with them long enough that she might become something better. 

Someone they recognize. 

* * *

 

Her dreams are soft, even gentle. Hands stroke her face, move her hair, press against her right side, always her right side. Her head hurts and her mouth's too dry to speak. Hands stroke her, hold her, but they're not here to hurt.

No torture. 

She hasn't been defeated. There's no agony booth.

Not dead.

She had no other ends to her life. Defeat and torture or death. Those were her options, but something here is different. Soft. 

Afsaneh slips through her dreams like a zephyr, and Michael, her dear daughter. She's here. Even Katrina. Killy. 

She must be dying. 

Then her eyes open. The light hurts, even though it's weak. She winces, squinting.

"Turn the lights down, she's waking up. Her eyes are sensitive."

That voice. She knows that voice, not Michael, not Afsaneh. Killy. 

"Em- Philippa--" she corrects herself. "Philippa, can you hear me? Don't move. Please don't move. Your tissue's really fragile and you keep bleeding and they've already had to ask the crew to donate because you went through the whole stock and you don't want to do that again." 

"No" She moves her hand on the second try, but she has no control. Her limbs are leaden, perhaps no longer her own. 

"Ensign Tilly to Captain Paris, she's awake. She's holding still this time, I promise. She's still pretty out of it so I don't think she'll move but I am standing right by her, just in case." 

Afsaneh's voice carries over the comm, rough like stones. "I'm on my way."

She was asleep. Time is impossible to determine on starships, starbases. Afsaneh would sleep odd hours here as well. She always has. 

"Michael, Michael she's awake," she calls behind her. "Don't move," Tilly orders, with more backbone in it this time. "Please don't move."

Michael joins her, stern and worried and soft. "Hello."

"I won't move."

"Good. You're still at risk, nearly dead." 

"You called me mother."

"You needed to listen."

Philippa's eyes close, it's so hard to keep them open. "I'm listening." 

"Now you listen." 

Afsaneh. She is here. She lives in this universe. 

"Couldn't get you to listen before."

She has to see Afsaneh, has to hear her, but her eyes are so heavy. 

"Pippa." 

She must have winced because Afsaneh laughs, low and soft. "You hate that too."

Hate is the wrong word. It's an insult on Gabriel's traitorous lips, but Afsaneh makes it sound pleasant. 

"Open your eyes." 

She's done thousands of things more difficult, but this takes all her strength. 

"There you are." Afsaneh's hair is different, more practical. She doesn't have any jewelry, and she has one of their uniforms, blue and gold, but warmer, softer. This is the soft place. 

Afsaneh touches her shoulder, but someone else has her hand. Michael. That's Michael's worried little smile, and Killy. Now she remembers. 

"I'm not dead then."

"Not for a lack of trying," Michael mutters, shaking her head. "You nearly bleed out, twice."

That's why she's so dizzy. Blood transfusions take a toll, so does tissue regeneration. This was bad. Batleth? No, that wasn't it. Disruptor. Tetryons. Her flesh melted away while Michael tried to save her. Succeeded. She rests her hand on her side, and there's still a monitor there, keeping watch on her wound. 

Her legs ache, and she moves which triggers everyone around her fussing and hovering. 

"Careful-"

"You could reopen your injury-

"Philippa-"

She finds Afsaneh's eyes and begs, unable to finds words, but she's never needed them with her Afsaneh. 

"Help her onto her side, she's been on her back awhile." 

Flat on her back is difficult to fend, and it's a ridiculous thought because she can barely move but she wants to be able to see a little. Curled in the fetal position, she finally remembers the last face surrounding her. 

Katrina. 

Dear Admiral Katrina. 

"You too?"

"I set you free," Kat says, taking a step closer. "Seems only fair that I should make sure you survive on your own. Our universe is a harsh place" 

Even laughing weakly hurts enough that her eyes sting and her side burns sharp and white. 

"Don't make her laugh, Kat." 

"I'm not that funny."

"That's true, don't laugh, Pippa, Kat's not funny. She's never been funny." 

They traded barbs almost as often as dirty looks, schemes that might have ended in each other's deaths, and the occasional blade in her universe, here they look at each other and smile. They roll their eyes. 

Afsaneh must have talked to the doctor, Michael as well because they share a look when Philippa won't move her hand from the wound. It's healed now, mostly, but her nerves remember the phantom burning.  She's weak enough to be vulnerable and that's the most dangerous thing. If he were here, alive, he'd make another move, but she has nothing to lose here. She must remember that. Here she is no one. 

Michael touches her wrist, then finds her hand. "Welcome back." 

"I don't feel as if I have returned."

"You'll feel half-dead for awhile." That voice she doesn't recognize, must be the doctor. She has that overprotective sort of doctor tone. "You've had two surgeries and bled out at least thirteen liters of blood, which is more than three times what you have. Killed my stock of AB."

They could have let her die. Would have, in her universe. There's no reason to keep her alive. She owes them nothing, they owe her nothing. She should have just died and that could have been the end of it. 

They talk and she drifts. Focusing takes more energy than she has, but Michael's hand is still warm against hers. 

Michael squeezes her fingers, all comforting the way her daughter never would be. "You're safe."

Safe. Safe is an illusion. Vulnerability is always with her, stalking her from the shadows. She's been betrayed by her daughter, by her right hand, but here her love lives and her daughter is kind. There is no betrayal, no mistrust, and that cuts through her deeper than any disruptor. 

That wound might never stop bleeding. 

"Michael."

"You're going to be fine. We'll even find you some leather so you can be on your way in a couple days." 

"You called me mother." She hungers for that in a way she has no resistance to. 

"You needed to listen."

There's something else, she remembers something. Afsaneh trying to make her listen. 

"Listen to you?"

"Perhaps." Michael's other hand touches her face. "I'll stay until you're asleep."

She doesn't have to, Philippa will be fine alone. She'll live. Michael's smile fills her vision before her eyes close again. Maybe there's something more important than surviving. Something she can't grasp or understand yet. Some worth to her life she hasn't found, doesn't know. 

Perhaps there is something for her in this soft universe. Not a fight, she's fought enough. This is something else. Something truly unknown.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philippa finally gets out of sickbay and has Katrina for a roommate, just for a few days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need another chapter, because there were things Philippa and Kat needed to talk about. Also, I hae a thing for Philippa learning to touch people.

Afsaneh rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest. "I'm fine. I don't need rehabilitation, I don't give a damn about my nice new liver."

Michael keeps her lips pressed tightly together to keep from smiling too hard. Afsaneh and her Philippa had a pleasant relationship. They teased each other relentlessly, of course, but it went back and forth. This time, Philippa's slow to retort, because she doesn't know her. Maybe they're not like that in their universe. They probably can't be. Death was so close, even Philippa's family was out to get her.

No wonder this is so difficult.

"I am fine," Philippa insists again, releasing her grip on the rail by the long line of windows. She stands steady now, walks evenly, as if nothing is wrong, but half the muscles of her stomach have new nerves, new tissues, and they don't work quite right yet. She doesn't shake off Afsaneh's glare, and they stare at each other again, that way far too intimate for people who have just met.

"You don't have to be fine," Michael says, keeping her hands back, just in case. "You can be angry too, if you want. I've been there, it hurts and everyone's fussing."

"In my universe, I could have you killed."

"Lucky for us, the worst you can do here is glare."

"If it helps, I'm still very afraid of you," Tilly offers from a safe distance behind Michael. "I'm very grateful, because you saved my life and I probably would not have survived if I'd been hit with that weapon because I'm not tough the way you are and I really wouldn't deal with it very well." She smiles a little, all frazzled from their lack of sleep. "So I think you're doing great, and you're still terrifying."

All the way around the docking ring is a good distance. It still hurts, it has to, and no matter what she says, and Philippa has to be tired. She's been through it, physically as well as mentally, and she's been helped, still needs it, and that's probably the worst of all.

She takes another breath, stops looking at Afsaneh's too-dark eyes. But she's steadily more pale, stiffer. Afsaneh tilts her head towards Michael, cautious and protective. Michael's heard stories, how Philippa had to drag herself back from some nasty injuries, and she wasn't even the harsh version.

Michael reaches out her hand, offering it to the woman who is not, yet is, her mother. "You're doing great."

"Walking should not be an accomplishment."

"At least you're used to having an entourage," Tilly says, and her brightness is a gift to all of them, even Philippa, who turns and looks at her, eyebrows raised. "I mean, if you weren't, you'd get really annoyed we were all with you."

Philippa lets her tone snap a little, but it carries no threat anymore. "I am surprised your great Federation doesn't have things for you to do."

Shrugging, Afsaneh smiles. "Having things I should do and deciding I do not wish to do them right now is the great privilege of becoming a captain."

Michael looks out at the stars, wondering how far _Discovery_ is now, and when this strange interlude has to end. "We're on leave until _Discovery_ can pick us up."

"Admiral Cornwell is working," Tilly says. "A lot, enough for all of us, really, and I think we should make sure she eats dinner."

"At least someone's keeping your Starfleet together."

"Single handedly, I'm sure." Afsaneh rests her hands on her hips, and evens her steps with Philippa. "I suppose I should make sure we're not swarming with spies or stuck in some kind of time-space anomaly that's filled the lower decks with sea creatures."

"Don't let me drive you back to work."

"Oh you can't give me orders, your Imperial Majesty."  They stop, eye to eye, staring at each other as if nothing else exists. Maybe it doesn't in that moment. Michael’s never really been able to look at someone that way."I just want to see how you fare without me."

Tilly watches her go, eyes wide, mouth half-open. "Her service record does not convey her personality adequately."

Michael catches her and grins. Philippa laughs a little, deep and dry until she winces. Michael shouldn't move, shouldn't grab her hand, because she'll hate it, but she reaches out anyway.

"I'm all right." That reassurance carries gently, not sharp or annoyed. "I shouldn't laugh."

"We should head back. Tilly's right, we need to make sure the Admiral's eating."

"Make sure I'm not over doing it?"

"I'd never say that." Tilly nods, firm and concerned, but she's behind Philippa, so it's safe. "I'm not insinuating, still afraid of you, remember? Terrified."

Their hands slip together, and to her surprise, Philippa squeezes her fingers. "All right."

Maybe she is tired, or it hurts, because she can't just need reassurance. She's the Emperor, she's-- maybe she's only human, tough Terran outside and all.

* * *

 

Michael stays long after they eat, even after Afsaneh's gone back to her quarters and Tilly's yawning into her hand. She's so young, this Tilly and her curly hair, but like the unruly mess of her curls, she's growing on her.

She's sweet; kind, everyone here is kind, and it clings to her; it itches, like pollen or the way that the light here is gentler. It's bright, often, and she's half-tempted just to let the doctors change her eyes so she'll blend it. Let go of the old world and her eyes that shy from too much light. She lies on the bed in the dark. The bed's too soft and the walls are thin enough that she can here Michael and Kat in the living room.

"Go to bed, Michael." That would Kat, being the good doctor and looking after everyone, because here she puts people back together instead of ripping them apart.

"Is she all right?"

"Yes, she's healing well, and her muscular response is much better than yesterday. There's no internal bleeding, and Doctor Rosyx is going to be able to use her case as a very compelling argument to further the ban on tetryon disruptors."

"Philippa will find that amusing."

"She might indeed. Go, I'll keep an eye on her, and you can come for breakfast, Afsaneh will be off then too,."

"Thank you, Admiral, tomorrow then. I'll see what Tilly and I can find on the " So polite, her Michael. Not her Michael, not her daughter, but she grows closer to this one every moment.

She drifts, her body dragging her into sleep against her will, as if that too is softening in this universe of light and laughter.

* * *

 

She wakes in that liminal space of unknown time. Her room's bathed in darkness, softened by stars outside her windows and it could be any time of day at all. On the _Charon_ she'd know what time it was by the sound of the ship but here she's lost. Adrift. The chronometer ner the bed reads just before oh three hundred, bu she has no ship to run, no empire to manage. It doesn't matter if she sleeps now or sleeps all day.

Getting up for something, maybe it's just for something to do, she leaves the too-soft bed and walks into the living room. Admiral Cornwell sits at the table, data PADDS spread out in front of her, exactly where they left her. Her mug sits nearly empty in front of her and Philippa clears her throat, so she won't be a surprise.

"Can't sleep?"

"I slept enough."

"You're still healing, be patient." Admiral Cornwell lifts her eyes from the PADD. "You look better."

"I was delirious when you arrived, the improvement would be obvious."

She smiles at that. "I'm glad you're not on the brink of death."

Even the platitudes here are different. Her Cornwell would be plotting a hundred different scenarios about her death and the line of succession. This one rubs her temples and looks back down at her work.

“I haven’t had a roommate since the Imperial Academy.”

“Me either, but...it got you out of sickbay. Dr. Rosyx was eventually willing to concede that thouh I haven't practiced medicine officially, I could recognize internal hemorrhage.” Admiral Cornwell, Katina, here she’s just Kat, raises her half-empty glass and smiles, but doesn’t lift her eyes from the data PADD.

“I’m grateful.” Philippa studies the shared living area, now that Michael isn't worrying her back to bed or the Doctor reminding her again she should sleep, she can actually look. It's far nicer than anything at the Imperial Academy, but it's nondescript. There are no marks of Starfleet or symbols of the Federation to inspire loyalty. There’s even Trill artwork on the walls, and all the furniture is less lavish than it would be in her universe, because here they do not care for materials. It's all fabricated, made to be functional and pretty. No one here cares about rank.

“Thought you might be.” Kat tilts her head towards the food synthesizer. “You can’t have whisky just yet, but It makes a good cup of Andorian tea, especially the south mountain blue.”

"Did she like that?" It wasn't in her journals.

"No, her favorite was the smoked valley something, I can't remember the name. Smelled a little like peat." Kat rubs her forehead again and sets the PADD down with a sigh. "It must be strange to also be compared to her."

"She was weak."

"She was an incredible person, a great leader and a good friend." Kat doesn't even look offended, just exhausted. Worn down by the war and all of her losses.

"Those murdered by their enemies are hardly remembered as well in my universe."

"No Emperors unfairly slain are remembered with wine and song?" Kat smiles a little. She's digging, searching for truths, but she does it without a dagger like the Kat she knows.

"Wrong empire."

"I suppose." Finishing her scotch, Kat sets down her glass. "How are you sleeping?"

"Fine."

"That's about as believable when I say it." Setting the data PADDs aside, Kat really looks at her where she stands in front of the replicator. "It's not poisoned."

"Synthesizers can be remotely programmed, and fell out of favor with the ruling classes." She scrolls through, looking at all the varieties of tea. There are far too many and she's tried none of them. Her slaves had the ones she'd chosen on the Charon, and her chef often introduced new ones after carefully curating a collection. Here, she'll have to try them all herself, while time winds around her, snaking towards whatever end.

Asking the synthesizer for a cup of the south mountain blue, she wraps her fingers around the mug, letting the warmth seep into her hand. Walking back towards Kat, she pauses when Kat tilts her head towards the sofa.

"I'm not making any real progress at this point anyway."

"Your war is over."

"Rebuilding is far more complicated. We've lost so many starbases and colonies that it's hard to bring materials to where we need them to rebuild."

"Convoys of cargo ships aren't enough?"

"So many of them were attacked by Klingons that we don't have the ships." Kat sits back, hands on her thighs. "I need to make sure the refugees have what they need first, and we need our defenses restored, but it's impossible to do both simultaneously." Her eyes are bright and determined, her jaw set, but there's a deeper exhaustion that makes her voice unsteady. "I'm supposed to stop losing people when the war is over."

"That's never how wars behave." Philippa stands, pacing over to the table and Kat's abandoned data PADDs, lifting them up one at a time, she finds the logistics problem Kat's been struggling with. "The Relva VIII colony?"

"It's agricultural, if we can get them self-sufficient, we'll save ourselves a headache a few months from now, and hopefully export food to the nearby colonies."

The Tellarite settlement four parsecs away could be raided and forced to serve the Terrans, but that's not how Kat does things here. Philippa reads through the trade routes and the available supplies in the sector while she sips her tea. The allocation of resources is entirely unsuited to war, or even readiness. More than half of their fleet is involved in humanitarian relief, something Philippa's fleet never even had words for. Colonies that were not self-sufficient were absorbed by other colonies, run by better governors.

Kat will never ask her people to move, or expect them to understand the need for war or safety.  It's a miracle they survived so long at all, this insidious Federation and their free will.

"The Halii and Garpar VII colonies should be merged, if only temporarily, that will allow you to focus your rebuilding efforts on one planet, which can then support the other with less assistance from your sector authority. A similar measure can be applied here, in at Gamma Hromi, if you ask one colony to be your beachhead, the others can be restored at an easier time in the future."

"I can't just--" Kat pauses, smiling a little. "I could ask them to determine amongst themselves."

"Let them use their lauded Federation principles and compassion."

"Sometimes I worry those are the first to leave us."

"Assassinating governors who disagree with you must be frowned upon here."

Kat leans forward until her head rests on her hands. "Don't tempt me."

"Michael says you've lost many that you knew." Touching her shoulder, Philippa nearly jumps when Kat's hand covers her own. Contact is so easy here.

"The admiralty was decimated when we lost Starbase One."

"Not sleeping will only carry you so far, Katrina."

"Kat, please." She pats Philippa’s fingers, then picks up the PADD, losing herself in the never ending business of saving the galaxy."How are you going to move duranium to Ardana?"

"With shuttlecraft tractor beams. You extend their navigational shields around the crates and fly them in formation."

"I didn't think of that."

"It was necessary when my Captain Tilly and I invaded Betazed, most of my cargo fleet was otherwise occupied."

Kat gets that look, but nods. "Thank you."

"Obviously this would be easier if you'd just destroyed Qo'Nos."

"Our way never seems to be easier."

The stiffness in her side insists that there are good things in this soft universe. Here she lived. Taking a hit like that back in her universe would have made Michael emperor. "You will tell me it's better."

"It's less cruel." Kat taps a few more thoughts into the PADD and sets it down. "We expand to explore, to better ourselves."

"Wandering right into everyone else's tetryon disruptors like lost antelope." Philippa finishes her tea and sets down the mug.

“They were lucky you were there.”

“You would like me to admit that there was no luck involved.”

“There’s no shame in keeping an eye out for Michael.”

“Section 31 has interests everywhere.”

“So I hear.” Kat yawns politely into the back of her hand. “It must be strange, looking into the face of your daughter.”

“A lover would be stranger.”

Kat stands and crosses to the table to pick up her scotch. “More dangerous.” She pours some in her glass and a splash in the bottom of Philippa’s mug. “You’d think I could tell the difference in the way he kissed me.”

Studying her lips, Philippa has to smile. “Gabriel as I knew him was endlessly adaptable.”

Guilting her whisky, Kat nods, loathing darkening her eyes. “I know he deceived many.”

“But it cuts deep when it is you.” She takes a sip, letting the whisky evaporate on her tongue. “Michael only pretended to be my daughter, and she did not achieve that well. She didn’t call me mother until I was bleeding out in front of her here.”

“Did it help?”

“What mother would not fight harder for her daughter?” The whisky burns her throat, warming her chest. “Even a shadow that has her daughter’s face.”

“I can’t say I know Michael well, but I know her through Sarek, and Philippa. She’s an extraordinary woman.”

“Worthy of my misplaced affections?”

“Who would protest another mother?” Kat’s smile warms her eyes, but there’s a wistfulness in the way her lips curl. “My parents were lost years ago.”

“As were my own.” Death comes quickly in all universes, but she can’t help her curiosity. Here Michael was raised by that Vulcan. At least he had a human wife. “Is Sarek a good father?”

“Exceptional.”

Philippa nods, biting back the complaint that he’s a Vulcan and can’t possibly understand what Michael would have needed emotionally. Perhaps his human wife is responsible for the depths of Michael’s compassion. “He must have grieved her in the time she was missing, in that Vulcan way.”

“We supported each other in our grief.” She shakes her head, eyes bright. “I don’t know what I would have done without him. My Gabriel was my best friend, one of so many lost in the war."

“Including the one with my face.”

"They all hurt." Kat taps her fingers on her glass, blinking too fiercely to clear her eyes. "War never takes in one battle, it's wearing, all these little losses chipping away."

"You wonder what you have left, and that's why you work so hard."

Kat's surprised smile makes Philippa roll her eyes.

"We're not entirely devoid of feeling in my universe. I know what it's like to lose those I command, to know my peers that I counted on are dead and I can do nothing to save them. Our losses during the Klingon war before we took their homeworld were incredible. I lost many I had trained and mentored." She's been where Kat sits, staring into her drink. Kat doesn't even have a daughter to live for.

Neither does Philippa, not here, but Michael holding her hand is fresh in her thoughts. This Michael loves without hesitation, and for some reason--

Taking a deep breath, Kat shudders, faltering. She's been controlling herself too long, keeping everything together. She should talk to Afsaneh more, find ways of letting her burdens go. She must be so alone.

Philippa reaches across the sofa, taking her hand. Compassion is destructive, so is empathy, but she has no Empire to protect here. This is what they believe in, and perhaps it feels less awkward than she thought.

"I lost three captains I'd promoted myself, good officers, that I watched develop into exceptional leaders."

Philippa knows how this must end. "You went to their families."

"I tried to, couldn't find all of them." That sends Kat over. "Kostyshyn had no family left, not even a distant relation. Her wife and children died on Kelfour VI, and I couldn't find her parents. Perhaps they were there as well."

"It's all right." That's what they say here, isn't it? They remind themselves that they've done their best. Ease their hearts. Kat’s is not fragile. She was willing to do what Michael was not, yet she bleeds for her people.

This is a universe of softness, of people who bleed.

She's already given her blood for Ensign Tilly and her curls, for Michael. Section 31 will ask her to bleed again. Shedding the blood of her enemies is easy, she's always had a knack for that, yet here she puts herself in the way.

Here she lets Kat squeeze her fingers, and they sit in the quiet darkness, not discussing the tears Kat has stopped fighting, or everything they've lost.

"What was he like? Your Gabriel. Mine was once my right hand, almost a father to my daughter." Kat doesn't need to know what came later. Let her remember the good.

"He was an ass."

That she can smile about. "So they were alike then."

"He wasn't just- Gabriel was thoughtful, funny. Once we watched the Perseids on Earth, lying in a field together in the middle of nowhere. It seemed silly at the time. We could have gone to a telescope or found a way to watch them better. The dew made it cold and--"

"You curled up together." She grins and Kat raises her eyebrows. "Oh come now, even in my universe, I know the trick of watching the stars outside when the air gets cool." She lifts her arm, resting it on Kat's shoulders as if she means to seduce her and that earns a laugh.

Kat doesn't shy away.

Michael holds her hand.

Afsaneh may have even kissed her, but her memories are vague. Her lips are so familiar that her warmth could be a memory of the other.

Or not.

Kat leans back, shutting her eyes. "The stars are beautiful on Langkawi and the nights are just cool enough, if I remember correctly."

"You've been to Palau Langkawi?"

"You took me. The other you, years ago, with Afsaneh and Gabriel. He didn't wear enough suncream and turned the color of a hibiscus blossom. Afsaneh kept putting them in his hair because they matched."

They must have laughed on the beach, walked through the water, sat up long nights and listened to the ocean. A lifetime ago they were alive and happy, now their little group is half lost, half battered.

Ka rests her head to the left, then on her shoulder. It could be the whisky easing her guard, or the months of loss and loneliness. Perhaps she sat close to her Philippa and talked about their feelings.

She wants to hate that, to roll her eyes and mock the admiral for her weakness, but it's late and her right side's still stiff and foreign. Kat's warm, pliant and vulnerable, and compassion creeps into her. Insidious and deep; even harder to remove then dying cells.

  



End file.
